gaming computer with a budget of 1200-1300

[Phyxius]

hi, i am looking to build a pc around 1200-1300 everything included, but i am having trouble deciding what i want vs what i need. the budget might be flexible but i would really want to stay in this price point all included.

i find it overwhelming all the information i need which is why i am posting here and hoping to get some advice from you good people :)

I prefer intel & nvidia, i know nothing of amd and ati.

i plan on using this mainly for upcoming FPS and MMORPG and i would like to be able to hit the high end scale on the graphics if that is even possible in this case because of my budget.

i have done research for the CPU and i decided on the intel i5 2500k, i do not know if there is a difference between the evga 550 and 560 vs the price. do i want/need an SSD & HDD? or do i only get an HDD and partition?

i need of everything for my pc possible, monitor, keyboard, cd/dvd/blu-ray, mouse(ambidextrous preferably), case, OS. i would like to plan to over clock but i would be very new at that and not sure if it is recommended to OC by such a total n00b. in the future(1-2 years) i would like to SLI the video card so i don't have to upgrade to much... maybe even have 3 SLI cards. so obviously i have to think of the future when i buy the power supply, motherboard, and case... should i be thinking water cooling?

for the monitor i would like to stay at 19"+ if possible.

so please keep in mind the budget and pardon me for asking very beginner questions.

thank you all for your expertise

[CloudFire]

hi phyx

first off, i would recommend getting an SSD as our primary OS boot drive, and probably a 1TB reg. hd for storage of everything else. since there will be an SSD, there is no need for the z68 platform (it has ssd caching compared to the p67, but ssd caching only makes a reg. hdd a bit faster but no where near ssd speeds) so p67 it is.

i5 2500k - 230$ - if there is a microcenter store near your house, pick it up there, i got mines 4 months ago for 194$ after tax (174 store price).

CPU cooler - cooler master 212+ - 30$
Newegg.com - COOLER MASTER Hyper 212 Plus RR-B10-212P-G1 "Heatpipe Direct Contact" Long Life Sleeve 120mm CPU Cooler Compatible Intel Core i5 & Intel Core i7

mobo - ASRock P67 Extreme 4 - 160$ Newegg.com - ASRock P67 EXTREME4 GEN3 LGA 1155 Intel P67 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard

-my personal board, absolutely one of the best P67 boards out there, tons of features, right price, has 3 pci-e slots, but don't 3 way sli, as the configurations in 1155 platform will go into 4x mode, which you don't want. 2 way sli is best because both runs in 8x, and compared to 16x, there is only a 3-5% performance gap, which is nothing noticeable in the real world.

ram - Corsair Vengeance 2x4gb - 75$ Newegg.com - CORSAIR Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model CMZ8GX3M2A1600C8
hands down one of the best rams out there, you can also go with the g.skill jigsaw, ram go on sale like every other day, so snipe a pair when they are like 50$

PSU - PC Power and Cooling Silencer 910W, 80+ Silver - 130$ , i picked this over the corsair 750w b/c both are same price, but this one is higher wattage and altho non modular (cables can't be removed), it is more quiet than the 750w.
Newegg.com - PC Power and Cooling Silencer Mk II 950W High Performance 80PLUS Silver SLI CrossFire ready Power Supply

Gpu - Nvidia 560Ti - 200$ the only and absolute best choice right now on nvids side, and since you're going SLi later, this is the best card for it.

SSD - Crucial M4 64gb - 140$ - for your OS and a few programs, if you can wait, they have been going on sale on slickdeals, i got a 128gb m4 for 160$ a few weeks ago!
Newegg.com - Crucial M4 CT064M4SSD2CCA 2.5" 64GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) with Transfer Kit

HDD - Samsung Spinpoint 1TB - 60$ - or Western Digital Drives. from what i hear, stay away from seagate.
Newegg.com - SAMSUNG Spinpoint F3 HD103SJ 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

Windows 7 x64 ~100

Kb/mouse/ not sure what quality you want, gamer or regular laser, so ~50$ here

Monitor - whatever you want, ~120 (this is about 1080p size) 19'' would be cheaper

Case - Corsair 400R - 100$

last thing i can say to you is, snipe off each product individually instead of buying it all at once, you can easily save about 50-120$ off the build cost by waiting for deals on slickdeals or logicbuy, but as it stands the total comes to over just 1400$. If you going to game on a 19, which i do not recommend, then you won't ever need to sli the 560ti. I would highly suggest you get a 22'' or bigger 1080p monitor or else your card is pretty much going to waste. If you are adamant on the 19, then a lower card will easily do the trick, in that case, I would say the ati 6870. If you snipe deals and wait a bit, this whole build can easily fit under 1300$ for you. The prices that can alter the most is the SSD, like for me, 160$ sniped deal instead of the 250$ (with tax) that it would normally be. Ram is another 25$ off instead of 70+. Rebates on certain models of the 560ti and PSU as well, can save you another 20-40$. If there is a microcenter near your house, another 50$ off the i5 2500k. Or if you don't mind normal HDD speeds, then no ssd would totally fit your budget as is.

[Phyxius]

hey cloud, thanks for your reply... to answer about the monitor, 19" is the absolute lowest i was willing to go with, i would much prefer getting a 22-24" widescreen, but i am at a lost when it comes to contrast 5,000,000:1 and has a cheaper price that some that have a contrast ratio of only 10,000:1. i am just unsure what i am supposed to be looking for in a monitor for specs.

as for the micro center store seems to be only based in the US, i am in Canada. In montreal/DDO, QC to be more precise.

(by the way sorry everyone for all the nooby questions)

as for the SSD, i know it has faster boot times, but i still didn't understand what i should be putting on the drive. do i only put the OS and the basic components such as the anti-virus and all that or do i put my games on it to and use my 1TB as music storage? if that is the case i would be fine with 750gb

for the mouse i am looking for something ambidextrous (I'm a lefty) that will be good for FPS (BF3) and a k/b for the MMO (star wars: the old republic). but i know prices can easily go up to 50-100$ for kb and an other 80$ for the mouse. so any suggestions on a gaming mouse/kb would be awesome.

for the case i'm a bit anal about that, because of airflow and the look :( i am partial towards the Azza CSAZ-2000 Hurrican Full Tower Gaming Case which i found for 125$ at ncix which holds 8 fans and the cage seems to have all the clearance levels for the heatsink you suggested for the 212 and also if i want to SLI the cards in the future.. Azza CSAZ 2000 Hurrican Full Tower Gaming Case | azza technology CSAZ-2000 | Computer Parts | Computer Cases | Sale Discount Deal - Canada Post Comparison Shopper

now would you recommend me OC'ing any of this or should i get a pretty good performance out of this out of the box?

[hal314]

I did a build to play new games (my first build) about 1.5 months ago.

**i5 2500k (stock cooler)
XFX Radeon HD 6870 dual fan
MSI P67A G43 mobo
WD Black 500GB HD
**HAF 912 case
Corsair gaming series 600W PSU
Samsung somethingorother DVD drive
G.Skill 8GB RAM
Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit
Samsung SyncMaster EX2220 Monitor
new cheap logitech keyboard
(already had the mouse)

** indicates I would definitely recommend these components

In the end, after taxes I probably spend $1250 (thank you price match at NCIX and websites like shopbot!)

I'm happy with the build, I've only played Starcraft II so far, but on high everything at 1920x1080. The full campaign played through without me noticing a frame rate slow down at all. I just noticed one for the first time yesterday when playing one of the player made maps that had a ton of stuff going on, rate dropped to about 26 fps at times.

With that in mind, at your budget, I would skip the SSD, make sure your HD can do the SATA3 and aim for a 6950 or 560 ti (something at the $220+ range) for GPU. My 6870 was about $175.

Conclusion
Yes: i5 2500k
Recommend: HAF 912
Recommend: go stock cooler if you don't plan on overclocking, I haven't seen temps that worry me.

[CloudFire]

Ah okay, yea, definitely go with 22-24 monitor for gaming. As for the contrast ratios, those 500xxx:1 is more for imaging monitors or art stuff where extreme precise color is important. 10,000:1 is fine if you're just gaming or watching movies, casual stuff, you won't notice a difference. Aside from the recommendation below, take a look at Samsung or Viewsonic, they make great monitors. Strictly from a gaming perspective, what you want in a monitor is good viewing angles, and fast response rate, 5ms or lower because you don't want any ghosting when you game. Again, snipe monitors off deal sites when you can, I've seen the asus one below go for around 120$ which is a steal.

Asus 1080p
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16824236052

For the SSD, you would only want to put the OS, anti virus, and possibly a few programs that you use often that usually would take long to load on a normal hd, ex. adobe photoshop. Otherwise, you don't want to put files such as video or music and everything else on the SSD (put them on the normal hdd) as it wears down the write cycles (they are finite, but a ssd would still last 4-5 years before its not able to write anymore). The Azza looks like a good case, I only suggested the 400R to stay within your budget, although it's an amazing case at that price.

For the mouse/kb, I don't know much about left handed mouse, so I can't comment too much. I've always been a fan of logitech for accessories, so take a look at the new G300, that one is left handed. For keyboard, take a look at logitech, razer, or steelseries and I'm sure you can pick one out. I played a lot of mmo's too and extra macro keys are important, I picked up my Logitech G15 when it was on sale for 40$ nearly a year ago, but I don't think they sell them anymore. Newer gen logi keyboads are 100+, which isn't good value so try looking at other vendors I mentioned. All the parts I selected for you, will give you great performance, max settings on almost every game now at 1080p, given a few exceptions like Crysis and what not. You should OC though, it's so damn easy. Even though I am experienced at OC-ing, uber deep knowledge isn't required to OC the 1155, it literally took me 30 seconds to go to 4.0ghz from 3.3ghz with changing maybe 2-3 settings, so anyone can do it. To get to 4.0ghz, you pretty much just need to change the multiplier to 40x on the 2500k, and maybe add a tiny bit of voltage, often time non at all, so it's very doable. There are plenty of OC guides online that'll tackle any question you have.

Finally, if you do decide to look at other cases, I got some suggestions that you might find helpful aside the azza, but from what i can tell, the azza seems pretty decent.

-Cooler Master Haf X, 912, 922, 932
-Corsair 500R, 600T Special Edition << my personal case
-NZXT Phantom

[Russ_T]

As a fellow lefty, I can recommend the Razer Deathadder left hand edition. I have one and find it has plenty of precision for shooters.

[ultraman7k]

FWIW there is a guy selling his rig that is very similar to what you wanted at a great price in the bst section of the forum.

IMO it's an absolute steal of a deal. shamless plug for him. (btw not in anyway related/affiliated with seller!)

[Phyxius]

hey guys, i found this for gaming mouse(ambidextrous) and also a kb.. let me know what you think...
keyboard: Razer Lycosa - Razer Lycosa Gaming Keyboard | RazerStore
mouse: The Razer DeathAdder Left-Hand Edition - Razer DeathAdder Left-Hand Edition Gaming Mouse | RazerStore
i could probably match price these items but, i am just posting them so you guys can check it out and let me know.

(Thanks Russ for bringing to my attention the deathadder mouse

as a monitor i did find Samsung S22A100N 22" Class Widescreen LED Backlit Monitor for 140$
Samsung S22A100N 22 Class Widescreen LED Backlit Monitor - 1920 x 1080, 16:9, 5000000:1 Dynamic, 600:1 Native, VGA, Energy Star at TigerDirect.com

let me know what you think.
thanks!

[Phyxius]

can someone explain to me whaat realy is the difference between all these evga 560 card? they all have different prices, and some are the same price but 1 has 2gb the other has 1gb....

Search Results for evga gtx 560 ti superclocked at TigerDirect.com

help me choose!! lol

[ultraman7k]

I absolutely love my death adder. I've had it for the last 2 years and despite heavy usage, never once had a problem with it.

Granted, I'm not left handed, but it is by far and away the most comfortable mouse I've ever used. It tracks and clicks nicely and if the glowing emblem makes you angry you can always turn it off. That being said, I could see myself turning it in for one of those MMO mice with 12 buttons lol...

Anyways, I would recommend Razer, some people think they are gaudy looking or whatever, but I like their design and they make pretty solid products.